After Parrot, what next?

Tue Apr 10 00:44:51 EDT 2001

Actually, COBOL has been a largely overlooked language.  It was once
one of the most important programming languages on the planet.  It would
be unfortunate to disregard its usefulness just because it is old.  The
Parrot
designers need to take this venerable language into account.  Among the
many features of COBOL that have been lost in recent years are line numbers
and columnar structure (the latter having been kept in some versions of
FORTRAN).  XML would allow the actual column arrangement to be decided
later in a style sheet.  Maybe something like this:

<WORK-AREAS column=01>
<ARE-THERE-MORE-RECORDS column=05  heading=PIC=X(3) VALUE='YES'.>
<IMPLEMENTATION column=08>
<for>
 <controlvariable>line</controlvariable>
 <iteratorlist>getlines</iteratorlist>
 <body>
 <statement>
 <print>line</print>
 </statement>
 </body>
</for>
</IMPLEMENTATION>
</WORK-AREAS>
<NO-MORE-RECORDS column=88 VALUE ='NO '>
...

We need to learn to combine the best of both the old and the new.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Hamm" <ahamm at sanderson.net.au>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python,comp.lang.perl
To: <python-list at python.org>
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2001 7:38 PM
Subject: Re: After Parrot, what next?

> Roy Smith wrote in message ...
> >A bunch of us were discussing the new Parrot syntax (i.e things like
> >"left_angle_bracket_right_angle_bracket") today and came up with a great
> >idea for a new language syntax, which mixes the best ideas of Parrot and
> >XML.  Instead of:
> >
> Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!
>
> Why make life harder for people just to make life easier for parsers? Can
> you imagine how dizzying a couple of pages of that would be? It looks
> bulkier than COBOL to boot. Have you used Lisp in a previous incarnation?
> --
> "Having fun is half the fun" - Guru Adrian
> No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take
> it way too seriously - Micheal Tod (wishes he said this)
>
>
>
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>